Monday, January 05, 2009

SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum hearing scheduled in Rhode Island tomorrow

The adjourned Rhode Island hearing in SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, over the RIAA's attempt to compel production of Mr. Tenenbaum's parents' computer, is going forward tomorrow, January 6th.

The hearing is scheduled for 2:00 PM at the Federal Building and Courthouse, One Exchange Terrace, Providence, RI 02903 in Courtroom A, before Magistrate Judge Lincoln D. Almond.

Plaintiffs' motion to compel
Exhibit A
Hearing Notice
Rescheduled hearing notice
Defendant's opposition to motion to compel
Affidavit of Judie Tenenbaum

[Ed. note. We are advised that the defendant's lawyer, Prof. Charles Nesson, will be bringing with him his core legal team of students working on the case, and some representatives from his winter Evidence class at Harvard Law School, that more information about the case is available at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/riaa/, that press interviews will be conducted immediately after the hearing, and that there are real time updates on twitter: www.twitter.com/joelfightsback. ]

9:31 PM Twitter update: decision reserved

Commentary & discussion:

Digital Music News
Punto Informatico (Italian)




Keywords: lawyer digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property portable music player

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

To this man it's disgraceful how the RIAA can sue one person on no legal evidence (no actual distribution has yet to be shown) and then pry into the very private lives (computers hold a great deal of very personal information - that's why they're called "personal computers") of other people only casually connected to the defendant. Other people against whom they have no evidence at all or any case against. The belief of any Right to Privacy in these cases is a farce and an illusion.

{The Common Man Speaking}

Alter_Fritz said...

TCMS
Well, always try to see something positive in anything (even in the criminal(?) wrongdoings of the Holme, Roberts and Owen (HRO) lawyers working for Sony-BMG, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Warner!

With such outragous demands from them like snooping on parents computers that were not even at issue at the alleged "detection of an individual", the good think that american society can take from these proceedings is an easy to spot way to see if the judge in question is a honest due process obeying law abaiding part of society or not.
I guess thats the most valuable thingy that society can get from this "sue 'em all" terror campaign of HRO and Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US, but controlled by a Canadian).

Every judge that is sane/wants to be recognised as being sane should throw these kind of demands by "Evil4"-plaintiffs out of his courtroom as fast as due process allows him! (And sua sponte recommend/think about/hand out Rule 11 sanctions against RIAA-EVE and Co.!)

Anonymous said...

What I find so amazing is that forensic imaging of hard drives in civil cases hasn't come under more fire from civil liberties groups. As the defense in this case notes, the plantiffs didn't limit their demands to relevant data, instead demanding access to all the data, which includes private financial data and privileged information of non-parties.

The RIAA's demand to image the hard drive of a non-party is akin to them demanding to send RIAA agents to search every square inch of the defendant's parent's house and businesses--including rifling through all underwear drawers, closets, shoeboxes, medicine cabinets, file cabinets, food cupboards, refrigerator, garage, toolboxes, mail, tax records, personal correspondence, mementos, book collection, Christmas cards--everything. That would never be allowed in a civil case over alleged file sharing, but in principle is it no different from the RIAA demanding the entire contents of a non party's personal hard drive.